In the Stargate SG1 universe, there doesn't seem to be animal life on alien human-occupied planets. The only non-plant life encountered are other sentient beings. Does this mean that any humans relocated to the alien planets by the Goa'uld had to subsist on a plant-only diet?

@user14111: Nice catch. It's a pet-hate of mine that 'sentient' tends to be mis-construed as meaning 'sapient' in most sci-fi material, but damned if I don't fall into the trap myself. A lot like saying "OMG" despite the fact I'm agnostic; I was clearly raised wrong, both by my parents and Lucas and Roddenberry, among others.
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James SheridanJul 15 '14 at 6:32

Let's not forget the scene where an Unas shares some crispy Goa'uld with Daniel. While it is arguable whether or not Unas are sentient I think it is well established that Goa'ulds are animals. Especially Chronos - but that might be just my opinion.
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EinerJul 15 '14 at 6:45

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@Einer: I left that out of my answer because Unas aren't human. If I recall correctly, symbiotes aren't the only meat that Chaka eats in that episode.
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James SheridanJul 15 '14 at 9:44

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The thing about wild animals is that they're usually pretty good about hiding when something unknown comes wandering their way. It's a safety measure that most species learn so as to survive. It seems as though most scenes that take place outside include the chirping of unknown birds or birdlike creatures, so I would assume that much of the fauna encountered is simply hidden from view.
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zzzzBovJul 15 '14 at 19:03

2 Answers
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Of course not. There are multiple cases on the series of off-world humans eating meat, though the most notable example is the armadillo-type creature in the feature film.

Now, it is true that we never actually see an off-world human eating meat during the run of SG-1, but we also very seldom see them eating at all. When they are, it is usually a scene, similar to that in the film, though sharing more in common with the similar scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where the team shares a meal with the poor farmers/ miners/ slaves on the planet of the week, which establishes that these people are too poor/ subjugated to have easy access to meat.

This in no way implies that no off-world humans eat meat; the relative good-health of many off-world humans would preclude a non-meat or little-meat diet. It's also very difficult to believe that a high-class human, such as Pyrus in Need, would not be eating meat. That same episode establishes that many planets have similar life to Earth - the joke Daniel's love-interest makes about trees being isolated to her world - which, again, would imply that there are animals worth eating on many worlds.

I do think it is very reasonable to assume that most human colonies were established by the Goa'uld as mining settlements, and it is also probable that any meat products would be confiscated by the local Goa'uld/ Jaffa or a trusted human overseer, as happened numerous times on our own planet (such as feudal lords denying nearby peasants the right to hunt on their property). There is also the problem that many off-world colonies would not have had access to the animals eaten on Earth once the Goa'uld lost control of the planet.

In Sacrifices it is established that the Jaffa have at least one ritual requiring goat meat. A similar creature is eaten in the Pegasus galaxy. The episode Emancipation takes place on a planet inhabited by horse-riding Mongol warriors. While they are not seen to eat horse-flesh on-screen, it is highly-likely they did so, as to Mongolian and Turkic peoples on Earth. The sourcebook for the Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game notes that llamas were transplanted from Earth to the human-occupied planet Gallicia, where they are a staple food-source (along with the aforementioned goat). The ability of the Ori-created insects in The Scourge to adapt to an all-meat diet indicates that meat is eaten on other human-occupied worlds as well. In The First Commandment , Carter mentions that it's strange that there are no birds on the planet, which, again, implies that there are birds, which are likely edible, on other planets.

We also can't forget the simple fact that it is a lot cheaper, from a production stand-point, to highlight the wealth of a human by showing them eating grapes, rather than steak, and likewise it is easier to highlight a person's poverty by showing them eating a meagre salad than a strange creature. A regular series episode had a much lower budget than the feature, and what money they had was more likely to be spend on cool CGI effects or battle-sequences.

I think you're reading too much into the lack of spit-roasts on-screen, myself.

Also, out of universe, shooting a scene where people are eating meat is a nightmare, a standard 5 minute scene around a table could take a day to shoot, meat products attract flies, would quickly become inedible, which means they need to be replaced constantly, which is a continuity nightmare. In all cinema & TV 99% of scenes where you see people eat (and the food isn't part of the plot/joke/story) you only see actors putting bread or vegetables in their mouths.
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Binary WorrierJul 15 '14 at 8:00

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@BinaryWorrier: Good point. If meat is required, squid seems to be the go-to choice, probably because bugs don't like it and it's easy to make look like other things. I know they died squid blue for a Star Trek film.
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James SheridanJul 15 '14 at 9:42

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Picking a consistency nit: "the relative good-health of many off-world humans would preclude a non-meat or little-meat diet", is not necessarily true. Off-world humans eat off-world food, and there is no obvious reason for such vegetarian food not to contain adequate protein levels. Earth foods generally don't, of course, vegetarian protests notwithstanding, but there is no obvious reason to apply this rule to other worlds.
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WhatRoughBeastJul 15 '14 at 11:26

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"the relative good-health of many off-world humans would preclude a non-meat or little-meat diet" - can you please explain why off-world ecosystems in SG1 are far less suited to vegetarianism than earth diets?
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djechlinJul 15 '14 at 15:42

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Meat also provides all nine essential amino acids. You can get this from certain combinations of non-meat foods (e.g rice and beans), which I assume is how Jains and other traditional vegetarians get by, but meat is the simplest way to get it.
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tsleysonJul 17 '14 at 20:40

On the Stargate Wiki, there is a list of foods mentioned in the Stargate series. It contains meat based foods such as Salisbury steak, but all of the meat based foods seem to be from Earth.

However, that is not to say that people didn't eat meat. It might have simply not been mentioned. For example, in the 1994 movie, there were these big yak/camel things (apparently called "mastadge"). What do you think happens when one of them dies? Why not eat them?

"What do you think happens when one of them dies? Why not eat them?" Sorry, I don't want to seem like I'm being picky, but you don't eat the meat of an animal that just keels over and dies, not unless you're really desperate. Meat needs to be properly butchered, entrails and offal removed and blood drained more or less immediately to preserve meat. When livestock die on farms they're buried, we don't eat those animals, you can't even use that meat for dog food.
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Binary WorrierJul 15 '14 at 10:39

Agreeing with @BinaryWorier, when a cow breaks a leg, but is otherwise healthy you need a vet to certify that the meat is safe to eat before the animal is killed, or the butcher won't touch it.
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hildredJul 15 '14 at 16:47

@BinaryWorrier oops. I thought that so long as an animal isnt terribly sick but still drops dead, it would be eaten. Maybe I should change that sentence to something like "What do you think happens if one of them is injured too much?"
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calccryptoJul 15 '14 at 16:50

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@calccrypto - Wait just a cotton-pickin minute here. Would you please explain "so long as an animal isnt terribly sick but still drops dead"? How sick can an animal be before dropping dead isn't a clue that something is really wrong with it?
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WhatRoughBeastJul 16 '14 at 1:52

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@calccrypto - Nor am I suggesting that. It's just that sickness does not necessarily manifest itself as obviously as you seem to think. If an animal keels over, it might be something as benign (in eating terms) as a stroke. Then again, it might not, and it's not the sort of Russian Roulette that makes for good dietary practice.
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WhatRoughBeastJul 16 '14 at 2:43